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Sefer Bereishit — the Book of Genesis—relates the stories of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs. So little is known about their struggles and achievements, and their spiritual stature is beyond our comprehension. Nonetheless, the Torah invites each reader to attempt to understand – inasmuch as the text allows – the motivations and emotions of these great men and women so we may come to understand ourselves and strive to emulate them. Learning Torah must, first and foremost, begin with careful and close reading. Here to aid the English-speaker with such study, Through the Prism is an original inquiry framed by observations from the great classic commentators as well as more recent scholars. This book is aimed at the intelligent English-speaking adult who has some functional Hebrew skills. Transliterations and translations facilitate understanding of the issues at hand in the original biblical Hebrew text. No translation can capture the full range of nuance and meaning of the original, yet this book attempts to transmit some of the richness of the language of the Torah – its allusions as well as its wordplay – so that the reader can begin to appreciate the unplumbed depths of its messages.